Yesterday was busy, what with shovelling snow and filling the woodrack on the deck and shopping for a new scook stove.
Sunday I turned on the oven to cook some meatloaf, and after a couple of minutes the kitchen was filled with the smell of Propane. The oven burner was lit, so I had WS come and check it out. He too smelled the gas and thought it was getting stronger.
I turned off the stove, WS turned of the gas bottle, we opened a couple of windows and turned on a fan to get rid of the smell. Good thing the woodstove had been going all day because it was about 8 degrees out and windy - but the woodstove bravely kept the house (and part of the outdoors) warm as we aired out the fumes.
I decided that maybe I could use the cooktop burners and make dinner that way so I had WS turn the propane back on and tried that. Nope would be the answer to that one, so WS turned of the propane for good and we called out for pizza.
I love my stove. It is about 20 years old and was given to me for my Birthday by my family. It has resided in 3 different homes/appartments and 2 different states. It new enough to have electronic ignition, but old enough not to have the safety system that prevents gas from flowing if there is no electricity. This allowed the gas stove be a great back-up heater for the house before we got the woodstove. One more thing - it hass a continuous cleaning oven. An oven that keeps itself clean while I am cooking. No special cleaning cycles need to be run, no elbow grease needs to be expended - it's a wonderful thing!
But, two of the stove burners don't burn cleanely (and can't be adjusted anymore to get them to that point), the oven no longer keeps a constant or correct temperature, the door is dented (from moving mishaps) and the enamal or the stovetop has been cleaned through to the metal in some spots. Heck, looking at the lettering, you would swear it is an "NMORE" and a "UOUS CLEANINING" stove.
So, we decided to go stove hunting on Monday. I had one requirement - that the new stove be continuous cleaning (okay, two; it had to be gas burning)
We went to Sears. We went to Famous Brands. We went to Best Buy. We went to HOme Depot. The only place that even had heard of a continuous clean oven was Best Buy. That was pretty sad as we talked to salespeople older than me at the other places, and talked to a 20-something kid at Best Buy. (he 50-something salesman at Famous Brands condescendiningly asked if I had ever had one. I informed him that I had had one for 20 years. He looked at my husband like I was crazy and WS confirmed my story. I wouldn't have bought anything from this guy if it was the last applience store on Earth!).
The kid at Best Buy said he could special order a continuous cleaning stove for me, but it would take 4-6 weeks for delivery. I can't live that long on stuff that can only be made in the microwave or toaster oven, so I passed. (Actaually, I lie, we lived with just a microwave for 5-6 months when we first bought this place and before we put the kitchen in).
We traipsed back to Sears because they had the biggest selection of gas stoves - everwhere else only had 3; one for each price range. I finally picked out a Kenmore range that has a Smart Clean feature. This feature monitors the oven usage (time and temps used) and uses that information to determine time and temp for the cleaning cycle.
The stove has way too many bottons and electronics on it for my liking but that is hard to avoid. All but the cheapest stoves have all kinds of electronics and only four knobs - there is no knob for the oven as it is totally electronically controlled. I actually only saw 2 stoves in our wanderings that had 5 knobs.
The stove, of course, was not in stock, but it will be delivered sometime on Thursday (WS will be coming home to let them in). Then Friday morning, the gas company will be coming out to hook it up (I have that day off anyway). Figure a couple of days for me to read the manual and be comfortable with the oven operation.
We might get to cook the meatloaf that I mixed up for Sunday night dinner on the following Sunday anyway (yes, I did put it in the freezer).
The salesman who hadn't known about continuous cleaning hadn't been in the business for 20 years, had he? My gas range in Albuquerque had a continuous clean oven. I don't recall what the last gas oven on Sunrise was, although my gas range here has a cleaning cycle oven. My gas ovens don't get used for messy things, so I don't pay that much attention. Messy stuff gets cooked in the electric oven--a habit left over from the original Sunrise appliances.
You may recall that the only reason that we had an electric oven installed when we built the Sunrise house was that we couldn't find a gas range with an oven that had any type of cleaning capability (other than elbow grease.) Now it's just habit to use the electric oven in this house.
Posted by: Cop Car | February 24, 2005 at 08:24 AM
I couldn't remember why we had two ovens at Sunrise - but do remember that the electric oven was self-cleaning, so that makes sense.
Posted by: bogie | February 25, 2005 at 05:45 AM
And that poor, old self-cleaning electric oven was the only original kitchen appliance to survive the 35-year span to sale of the house. HH had given me a new range and hood for some birthday or anniversary a few years before we built here. (Hey! He owes me for that stove and hood from the sale price of the house. He kept my money--LOL!)
Posted by: Cop Car | February 25, 2005 at 09:19 AM